In a network element, Self Aware Management (SAM) functionality relates to the capabilities of the management processes and the related infrastructure to organize themselves and operate in a fully or partially autonomous manner. Preferably, tasks of a network element administrator (i.e., a SAM operator) with regard to SAM functionality are limited to the defining operational objectives and parameters of these processes. These operational objectives and parameters must take into account the non-active nature (i.e., non-static nature) of the network elements being affected by the SAM functionality.
One significant limitation of known SAM functionality is that cloning (i.e., creating) a policy requires numerous manual steps need to be performed by the SAM operator. Put differently, known SAM functionality does not have the capability to deep clone an object and modify its attributes in a single transaction. Deep cloning refers to replication of policy elements that are deeply embedded within a respective policy. The known approaches for cloning a policy from another policy require an external system to perform several transactions. Examples of these transactions include, but are not limited to, cloning each child of a target object (one transaction per clone), modifying (i.e., overriding) one or more attributes (i.e., properties) of the cloned children (one transaction per modification), cloning a target object (one transaction per clone) and updating the cloned target object with cloned child as its child (i.e., one transaction per update). A policy (e.g., an SLA profile policy) is an example of a target object and a referenced policy is an example of a child object with respect to the policy.
Therefore, an approach for facilitating SAM functionality in a manner that provides for deep of a policy in a single transaction would be advantageous, desirable and useful.